After the head of UK investment banking at BNP Paribas, Matthew Ponsonby, stepped down from the role earlier this year, the French bank turned to Mark Lynagh to replace him. Lynagh, who had spent 15 years in its UK office, had relocated to New York around 18 months earlier.
“I’ve worked here for long enough to skip the pleasantries and immediately get good ideas from talking to people”, said Lynagh, who was head of capital markets for the Americas before taking on his current job, which includes both leading its UK investment bank and being deputy head of global capital markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea).
During the 2020 Covid pandemic, BNP Paribas continued to offer financing to clients in desperate need of capital even as some rivals pulled back, pushing it to third in the investment banking league tables in Emea that year.
Since then, the bank has looked to gain more advisory and equity capital markets work, hiring in senior talent and securing more deals. It has cemented itself as a top five player in the region, finishing fourth for the past two years, according to data provider Dealogic, ahead of all European banks and some top Wall Street firms.
Under Ponsonby, who is joining Japanese bank Mizuho, BNP Paribas’s mantra for its UK business was “no excuses”. But a top 10 position has remained elusive. It is currently in 11th place in the UK investment banking league tables, according to Dealogic, with $67 million and a 2.1 per cent market share. The French bank has not broken into the top 10 since 2020.
BNP Paribas want to be “firmly established” as a top 10 bank in the UK investment banking fee league tables, Lynagh said. The UK accounts for 25-30 per cent of the fee pool in Europe and is key to becoming a top player in the region.
“The UK remains a strategic priority and has a specific growth plan for 2030”, Lynagh said. “With that comes a lot of focus in terms of targeted investment, capital, people and further growing the product and advisory capabilities across corporate and investment banking”. The UK investment banking market remains intensely competitive, with banks including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and UBS all focusing more on the country in recent years. Lynagh said that the bank is focused on gaining more work from M&A and ECM deals in the UK.
Despite the increased focus on the UK, BNP Paribas’s investment banking business has not unveiled many big ticket hires. It promised former Jefferies banker Jolyon Luke to head up its UK financial institutions business, but recruitment has slowed after it bolstered banker numbers by 23 per cent to 370 people in the five years to 2023.
“We’ve not done the big splash team hires, that’s never been the strategy of the bank”, said Lynagh. “But we continue to selectively add talent to our UK-based sector, advisory, coverage and broking teams”. He said that the bank is still looking to grow its energy transition and technology investment banking business, but that there was a “huge focus on defence” as European countries increased spending in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“On defence we are also ensuring all the internal stakeholders are aligning to support corporates and governments in the huge investment required over the coming years”. In theory, a shift in the political climate could be beneficial for European banks. As well as the work on defence, US president Donald Trump’s ongoing tariff war has seen some dealmakers suggest that European investment banks could become the favoured choice of firms in the region snub to Wall Street.
Lynagh said: “There is a lot of chatter about using European banks more and we should be well-placed given our integrated model and strong ability to deliver”.
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